Charity Girl

Charity Girl

type

Book

Current Status

In Season

author

Michael Lowenthal

publisher

Houghton Mifflin

genre

Fiction

We gave it a B-

During World War I, young women thought to have sexually transmitted diseases were seen as a threat to the war effort and forced into quarantine. In Charity Girl, Michael Lowenthal’s flawed historical novel, 17-year-old Frieda Mintz has just landed a job at a Boston department store. After the ”Committee on Prevention of Social Evils Surrounding Military Camps” accuses her of infecting a soldier, she’s sent to a medical detainment camp. But the story never compels. It’s not that the events are far-fetched — in today’s political climate, they’re all to easy to believe — it’s that the characters, Frieda included, are so wooden.